International Relations Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has taken the unusual step of issuing a diplomatic demarche to the Australian high commissioner in South Africa. Governments use demarches to official protest or object the actions of a foreign government.

This comes in the wake of Australia’s home affairs minister Peter Dutton announcing that his department was looking into fast-tracking visa applications from white South African farmers.

Sisulu demanded that Dutton retracts his statement which includes provocative language and claims white farmers in South Africa deserve special attention because they were being persecuted.

Briefly.co.za gathered that the Australian High Commissioner to South Africa, Adam McCarthy was summoned to Sisulu’s office to receive the demarche. McCarthy has passed on the demarche to his own government, but chose not to comment on the matter.

Sisulu released a statement which repeated the government’s stance on land expropriation without compensation. The statement said land expropriation would be handled in terms of the Constitution of the country.

Meanwhile, support for Dutton’s controversial proposal has gained support from some local Australian politicians, who are keen to take South African farmers as refugees.

The state of Victoria’s Liberal MP Bernie Finn said the Australian government should be reaching out to South African farmers who face a daily threat of violence.

Australia’s former Speaker of the House, Bronwyn Bishop called on the Australian government to prove to South Africans that it has compassion for their plight and said they should be offered asylum. Bishop said white farmers were being judged on the basis of their race and called on Australia to take a stand.

Reports emerging from Australia say the country’s government is preparing itself for a perceived disaster in South Africa and is taking the land expropriation matter very seriously.

As if that were not enough an Armenian man living in Canada started an online petition urging the Armenian government to provide asylum to all white South Africans in order to save them from a genocide.